The Guardian view on an ivory ban: tusk trade rules need teeth

No markets in elephant ivory should be legalised. They would sustain demand and provide a cover for illegal trading and poaching

A bull elephant grazes in South Africa’s Kruger national park. ‘On current trends, by the time today’s children reach adulthood, the entire African elephant population will be extinct in the wild.’ Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters

The illegal trade in endangered fauna and flora is the world’s fourth biggest, after the trades in drugs, counterfeit goods and people. The difference is that there is no shortage of the other three. Every 15 minutes, an elephant is killed by poachers. A third of Africa’s savannah elephants were slaughtered between 2007 and 2014. On current trends, by the time that today’s children reach adulthood, the African elephant will be extinct in the wild.

This is not inevitable. Governments are about to embark on a three-yearly meeting to discuss the future of international wildlife protection. Cites, the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna, brings together nearly every country on Earth in pledges to protect threatened nature.

On Monday, the plight of elephants will take centre stage at the Johannesburg meeting and the results will affect all endangered animals. On the table is a proposal to allow a limited international market in ivory that proponents say will benefit conservation, by allowing countries with stockpiles of tusks – some historic, some confiscated from poachers, some from elephants that died naturally – to raise money that can be ploughed back into poaching prevention. It is a seductive argument. Unfortunately, in the case of endangered species, this does not work. The evidence from past tusk sales is clear: legalised markets in elephant ivory sustain demand and provide a cover for illegal trading and poaching.

Encouragingly, the UK is set to take a stand and has moved ahead of Europe in tightening its own rules on the trade in tusks. British officials will not only oppose new legalised ivory sales but push our own domestic rules even further.

At present, ivory produced before 1947 can legally be bought in the UK, but sellers can circumvent the law by claiming lack of knowledge of the provenance. Under tightened rules, they will have to produce evidence of the pre-1947 origin. This is a good and important step, and will help prevent the UK being a clearing house for poached tusks. Brexiters might relish the chance to thumb their nose at the European Union by advocating a total international ban on ivory sales, but Britain should not go too far. To forbid any kind of ivory to be sold anywhere would include everything from jumble sale ornaments to Steinway grand pianos. The evidence is that most illegal poaching takes place in countries where there is no possibility of future ivory sales.

In this global arena, the real players are China and the United States. As long as there are buyers for ivory, elephants will be slaughtered. We must address the uncomfortable question of why some continue to prize the remains of dead, rare, beautiful creatures above their living nature, and how we can educate people to change this. China and the US have the opportunity in the Cites meeting to build on their newfound shared stance on the environment by extending protections to other globally endangered wildlife.

In 1990 Cites banned the ivory trade to stem poaching, but the slaughter continues. The convention will fail in its aims to save disappearing species without government commitments to reduce demand and to increase funding for conservation. Cites can do without the tusks. It needs teeth.